


Send Noods

by lovemuppet



Series: STUPID PROMO VERSE [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Corporate AU, Creative director Dean winchester, Dean wears glasses, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Masturbation, Nudes, Office AU, PR Castiel, Sam and Cas are friends, Sexting, a little dose of, but also always attracted to eachother, cdc approved sex practices, crowley and garth go into business together, dean's a soft boy, love in the time of social distancing, masturbation in an office setting, noodle au, send nudes, social distancing, sticky notes change lives, the corona virus, trench coatless castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:22:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27036388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovemuppet/pseuds/lovemuppet
Summary: Dean is a Creative Director for Funtime Noodle Company who comes up with the "Send Noods Campaign" which was created as a way to send a little joy to your buddies from the safety of your home. Though the promotion was overall successful, the Funtime Noodle Company had received quite a bit of hate mail. Castiel Novak is the poor bastard who has to reply to all the accusations about "sexualizing mac and cheese"Food Centric Meet Ugly. Love in the time of the 'Rona.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: STUPID PROMO VERSE [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2174520
Comments: 17
Kudos: 128





	Send Noods

**Author's Note:**

> prompt by supernatural 9917  
> based on a true story:  
> https://percolately.com/moms-kraft-noods-ad-campaign/?fbclid=IwAR3vIier0RniqsfAMbCNUnMN9DvugYOCLNN2V5u04yxkIAy3LnBUTg6XmfQ
> 
> THANK YOU FOR THE BETA READ evolving.diamond!!!!!!!!

It was an accident. 

_Hilarious_. But an accident. 

Three months before **The Virus** , Dean Winchester had joined the creative team at Funtime Noodle Company as their new creative director. When the virus hit, the whole company had, rightly, gone remote. Work had been slow but he had been optimistic. He firmly believed that getting to work from home would get the creative juices flowing.

It hadn't.

But, it _had_ allowed him to get to know his team a little better. By the time they were allowed back into the office, they had become a family. Complete with gentle, ribbing jokes and “ _gentle ribbing”_ jokes. Dean was glad to see them in person now, even if it meant they had to stand some distance apart. 

It wasn't all bad of course. The creative team took social distancing as a challenge to "reinvent intra-office communication". This meant, naturally, they spent much of their time communicating with each other in sticky notes. They passed messages along through the mail slots in their office doors, to the department secretaries like they were passing notes in a high school English class.  
  
Dean kept a little "hall of fame" next to his computer monitor and the company social distancing policy meant that he could proudly display Charlie's poorly drawn "Jabba the Crowley x Slave Garth" (and the two subsequent sticky notes featuring a Charlie and Dean Jedi rescue) on his wall without offending either of the Company Founders.   
  


This little office game continued on for about a month without incident. But there were two office truisms:  
  
1\. Murphy's law went twice for copy machines and printers. and,  
2\. Sticky notes can change lives.

The creative department's first assignment back in the office was to create some sort of social media campaign. Crowley and Garth both had been very insistent that the campaign needed to keep the Corona Virus in mind. Garth had mentioned in his email, that he had really hoped to help bring a smile to people stuck at home.

Crowley of course reminded the creative team that people were bored out of their minds at home and were willing to shell out some cash for their own cheap amusement. 

Jo was the one to come up with the idea for people to send each other a box of the company darling: "Cheezy Mac". It was a national bestseller. Previous Ad Directors banked hard on the "soccer mom" demographic. Now, as parents were becoming more health-conscious, the demographic had shifted heavily towards broke college students who had grown up eating Cheezy Mac as kids. 

Nostalgia was always a good way to both bring a smile to someone's face AND get them to buy a product. 

It was Nintendo's entire business model.

So a campaign where you could "candy gram" Cheezy Mac to your buddies was a great start but the details were still a bit hazy. They needed some sort of a hook.

Sticky notes were ubiquitous and overfilled waste paper baskets in the days leading up to the deadline.

Dean thought he had almost had a winning idea when his stomach growled. That same moment, some documents slid through Dean's door slot with a sticky note from Pamela, one of the secretaries, asking what he'd like for lunch. His stomach growled again, louder, as he read the sticky note.

The woman was a ** _psychic_**. 

He grabbed his own stack of sticky notes and, in a flash of creative (punny) genius, doodled a bowl full of Cheezy Mac and wrote **"Send Noods"** with a small heart above the bowl. He attached the sticky note to outgoing paperwork and waited by the door. 

Pam cackled loudly and rapped on his door in acknowledgment.

That sticky note made its rounds amongst the creative team for the rest of the day and eventually, the team lost track of it. 

When the sticky couldn't be located, everyone had started to desperately search their wastebaskets and the backs of paperwork for it, lest it fell into the hands of someone from HR ( the whole of which had been decidedly left out of the quarantine group chat after the first time someone had used the word "Squelch", to describe the sound macaroni made, and the whole chat plunged themselves straight into the gutter.) 

Three hours later, Dean Winchester and the whole creative team received a congratulatory letter from the founders saying that they loved their "Send Noods" idea. It was exactly what it was they were looking for to reach the target demographic. Not ones to look a gift horse in the mouth (especially when that horse was known to spit out quite a sizable bonus), the team got to work on the proposal.

The Cheezy Mac project was one of those pieces that just created themselves. The Funtime Noodle Company had even managed to nab Suzie Lee, the former pornstar turned sitcom mom, to shoot a small commercial for the promotion from her kitchen. 

The whole office had teased Dean when he called her to thank her and his voice cracked. 

It was a polished, high-profile advertisement that had a surprising amount of love poured into it. The whole team had been proud. Garth had sent them all down travel-sized bottles of Champagne for the launch. And things were great. For about an hour. This was the internet after all. Their beautiful ad had been swept away by a storm of tweets. 

Champagne, it turns out, is a multipurpose adult beverage; good for both celebrations and crippling disappointments. 

Crowley had sent a glowing letter saying that they were on target to sell out of the promotion by the end of the week and they were trending. _**All**_ publicity was _**good**_ publicity as far as he was concerned. Garth, too, had sent a lovely memo to the department telling them to cheer up and leave the fallout to the PR department. "Those guys really know what they're doing, they'll get this all sorted out." 

Dean wondered briefly what poor sap would have to do damage control on this.

That poor sap, it turned out was Castiel Novak.

How Castiel had swung a job in Public Relations was more than anyone could fathom. Becky Rosen, the PR Director quietly considered him to be the worst officer in the department. But Becky had her hands tied and now.

Castiel was her only hope for getting this whole "Noods" thing under control. 

Originally, she had planned to assign managing the backlash to Balthazar. He was the strongest at diffusing tension with dry humor which, in this case, was ideal. Becky wanted to try to lower some of the tension in a way that would keep the interest of the twenty-somethings in their target demo. But Balthazar's first few replies lacked the tactful sincerity that this situation required so she pulled him in favor of the department clown, Gabriel.

The problem with that became evident when Gabriel spent the better part of an hour giggling over comments and retweets from soccer moms who insisted that the folks at the Funtime Noodle Company were "Food Fetishists" and "Left-wing smut peddlers." 

Seeing as how neither one of the department Ace's were likely to take this assignment seriously, Becky thought she might as well assign Castiel to the task and let him get some experience in. Castiel's blunt writing style should come across as purposefully obtuse and sarcastic and hopefully wouldn't be fuel for r/whoosh. Hopefully.

She started to doubt the decision when she had to explain the double entendre to him. 

He didn't react but then suddenly asked, "Did the ad neglect to mention the age requirement?" 

Becky shook her head. "No, we made sure to check with legal about what language to include in our posts. It's _adults seeing the promotion_ that are offended." She sighed and put her hands on her hips. "I mean, we're getting everything from conspiracy nuts to conservative moms suggesting the company's trying to 'put their dicks in their kid's dinners'." 

Balthazar snorted but much to Becky's relief, Castiel's face remained neutral, and he said only "I see." She handed the task to him then and there.

  
  
  
Castiel was annoyed. 

He didn't know why. He had felt bad for the creative team. They had received all sorts of glowing reviews for their promotional service and didn't deserve... well, Balthazar and Gabriel had referred to the backlash as the "Attack of the Mommy Bloggers". It seemed appropriate.

If he were being honest, it only took one look at the comments section for Castiel to feel more than a bit out of his depth. He was used to working with Sam Winchester over in Legal, about how to properly word responses and explain legal jargon to the average consumer. You would be surprised, maybe even interested, to hear how many "consumer advocates" try to file legal action and over what. 

You'd be the only one, most liekly. Castiel's dates had never seemed too interested. Of course, it had been a while since he had been on a date. The Corona Virus had turned his social calendar into an etch-a-sketch. Until Becky had explained to him what his latest assignment was, Castiel had assumed that every other single person in the world had been similarly unsociable. 

The fact that the rest of the world was "hip" on ways to satisfy their need for interactive sexual experiences was a firm tick in the "Annoyed" column. Castiel had fought _**hard**_ to keep the embarrassment off his face when Becky tried to politely explain the wordplay of the promotion to him. "Noods" wasn't just short for "Noodles" it was a play on the word "Nudes". 

The exchange of which was a practice that Castiel **could have been participating in** , rather than feeling like some old **sex hermit**. 

He had done his best to get through that whole talk with Becky as quickly as possible. Unfortunately in trying to be brief with his boss, she had evidently found him qualified for this monstrous undertaking. Great.

That had been the second full tick into annoyance. If Castiel had only objected to the assignment even a little...But what could he object over? It wasn't exactly a well-guarded department secret that Castiel was good at legal matters and _nothing else_. To his horror, this ineptitude carried over into photographing his genitals.

He came to find in that week, spurred on by sexual frustration and a niggling curiosity that he wasn't very good at taking "Nudes". He gave up after about thirty minutes of taking blurry snapshots in front of his standing mirror at home. Each botched shot irritating him even further. 

All in all, the campaign only lasted a week. Castiel had been subjected to every nasty thing a person could say about a company that made pasta. The well was deep and the chasm wide. Castiel was miserable. 

Once the company had sold all 200,001 of the promotional boxes, Crowley had Becky write a bittersweet post on all of the Funtime Noodle Company social media pages apologizing for any pain their promotion had caused and also celebrating over 200,000 smiles. They then ordered her to purge the social media sites of the evidence that the promotion had even existed. Days worth of vitriol, of Castiel, painfully trying to put out fires and valiantly coming to the aid of actual food fetishists all of that hard, out of character work.... just--gone. 

That Friday, near closing time, he was out to put the head of the creative who came up with that **_infuriating_ **promotion on a pike and carry it throughout the PR office as a warning. He said as much to Sam over the phone as they were adjusting a statement that actually was making it to mediation (he had barely remembered the original claim in between being called a childhood ruiner and a pervert). 

Sam laughed and said, "I'd pay to see that." Castiel asked, then, insides churning in rage, if Sam knew the person responsible for his torture. "Yeah, And I know where you can find them. Give him hell for me Cas, half my workload right now is because of his stupid pun."

Sam spent the next minute or so relaying to him the abridged story of how this promotion even came to be. Castiel's blood boiled. 

**Of course, Dean Winchester was involved.** Why _wouldn't_ he be? Why _couldn't_ a full week of suffering be attributed to the cock-up of some dumb **Himbo** that Crowley, the king of Castiel's own personal hell, had decided to indulge in for some easy publicity? Hell, maybe Crowley was trying to butter that bowlegged brat up, the flannel-tied idiot practically had an interoffice fan club. 

Of course, no one would stop to question if an idea _Dean Winchester_ had might be a _bad one._

Sam barely got the office number out before Castiel slammed down the receiver, bolted out of his seat, and rushed up 14 flights of stairs (he was _NOT_ waiting on the elevator, thank you, time was of the essence). Pamela, one of the creative department secretaries must have been warned about Castiel's target. She pointed towards Dean Winchester's office with a slight smirk and let him kick the door open. He got it in one good, kick and was eternally grateful to be able to make an entrance.

However, when he entered the room, he had to fight to stay angry. 

Dean Winchester was wearing glasses and it was completely unfair.

Castiel didn't even think the door blowing open had registered. Dean tore his eyes away from the computer monitor, slowly and gave him a confused once-over. In an unfairly husky voice, he called "Pam?" 

Pamela ducked her head in quickly "You have a walk-in." 

He smiled tightly. The glasses magnified his stupid green eyes slightly so that Castiel could see faded freckles underneath long eyelashes. "How can I help you...?"

Castiel blinked and in a surprisingly low voice, even for him."You're the one who made the 'Noods'."

Dean's features cleared up and he had the decency at least to sport an embarrassed blush. "Uh, not really? It sort of just happened. I was just hungry." 

It had taken Castiel an embarrassingly long time to decode what Dean had just said. He had spent the whole week talking about Cheezy Mac as a metaphor and a symbol for sexual activity that he had completely forgotten it was a meal option. In the time it took Castiel to work it out, Dean reached over and pulled on his mask, probably anticipating that this wouldn't be just a quick conversation. It had little noodles on it and reiterating script with the same plaguing pun. But instead of irritating... 

Castiel found it oddly endearing. 

"What brings you to my neck of the woods, Dude?" 

"Castiel," Castiel said, clearing his throat and remembering his manners. They had never been formally introduced but had caught brief nods from each other when they handed Sam off. He doubted Dean even knew his name. "Sorry, Castiel Novak." He patted his suit pockets looking for his mask. "I actually came up here to stick your head on a pike for that idea." 

Dean blinked. "Really?" 

Castiel slipped his mask on. "Yes. I'm in Public Relations. I've had to manage the fall out for the last week. I've been fighting with noodle conspiracy theorists and bored angry mothers. They 'pulled the plug' today and purged everything." 

Even with his face partially covered, he could see Dean wince. "That sounds rough, Cas." 

Castiel's shoulders sagged at his sincerity. Everyone else this last week had seemed to find Castiel's distress funny. It was refreshing to hear someone sympathize. "The roots of the internet reach all the way to hell." He said seriously. 

"I believe it." After a thoughtful pause, Dean cleared his throat and said congenially "How about I make it up to you? The bars are still closed, but my friend owns a restaurant with a good 'drinks-to-go’ system. I'll order some and you can give me the highlights from this week?" 

Castiel was surprised, but found himself nodding. "I-uh...I'd like that. Thank you, Dean."

Castiel had looked different without his beige overcoat. 

Okay, that was putting it lightly. Cas had looked like **sex on two legs** standing there glaring at him in his office. Dean had almost itched to call him "Sir" and was glad that he hadn't. He had really fucked up the dudes week, some kinky office roleplay was probably the last thing Cas was thinking about.

200,001 promo orders had confirmed that food was a good way to bring a smile to someone's face and, much to Dean's relief, he had been allowed to redeem himself. When their dinner arrived, Dean and Cas sat at different ends of the office and chatted pleasantly. Besides being devastatingly handsome, Cas was _funny_. He had a ton of stories to tell and, even though Dean had remembered hearing about these cases from Sam, Cas made them _interesting_. 

Time passed by quickly and before either of the men knew it, night had fallen and everyone had gone home. They had long since put away their burgers and were nursing the strongest long island Iced teas either of them had had in their lives ("Jesus, Benny"). Castiel chuckled a little bit, slouched in the armchair in his corner. "I hadn't remembered 'nudes' were a _'thing'_ until Becky reminded me." Dean laughed into his drink. "I was so embarrassed when she started to explain it to me like some blushing virgin." 

"Right? Who hasn't taken a nude?" 

Castiel tilted his head, amused, and pulled his straw out from under the bottom of his mask. "I hadn't before then." 

"Really?" 

"I have since. I'll admit I didn't expect the learning curve to be that high." 

Dean's mouth watered. Pre-Corona, this guy used to outpace Sam in a gym. Dean didn't think there could be a bad photo of the dude. And, maybe it was the drink, maybe it was an urge to advertise his own interest, but Dean told him so. 

"...You could see for yourself. I assure you they're awful."

"Alright, send them over buddy. Let me see what you're working with." Castiel pulled out his phone and asked Dean for his number. 

To his great relief, Dean's voice did _not_ crack when he gave it to him. 

He felt his pocket go off and pulled out his phone. Castiel was watching him, cool as a cucumber, suit jacket gone, tie undone sleeves rolled up. He winked with confidence he did not feel and Castiel snorted looking down at his shoes. Dean opened the attachments one by one and probably died and went to heaven because there was a sexy, sexy angel in his inbox. He coughed to cover the whine that threatened to leave him when he got an eye full of Castiel's dick.

Castiel huffed a laugh and Dean's ears heated, slowly perusing the selection. His phone buzzed again and he nearly jumped out of his skin. It was a message from Cas. He looked up, confused and Cas just shrugged. 

[Cas: Your silence can mean two things but that blush can only mean one :P I take it the "nudes" are okay?]

 **Cas used emoticons.** _God, how was this guy single?_

[Dean: I thought you said this was your first time.]

Castiel chuckled and Dean watched him type out a reply with a calm, amused expression. [Cas: It was! I hadn't had any particular reason to send photos of myself. I'd prefer to be there in person.]

[Cas: Or, I've been told I'm not completely terrible at 'sexting'.]

Dean and Castiel made eye contact then and the room seemed to shrink around them, the phone buzzed in Dean's hand. [Cas: Would you like to?]

 _Does a bear shit in the woods, Cas?_ Dean nodded. And Castiel winked as he settled into his phone. Dean's pulse took off like a jet engine as another message came in. 

[Cas: You know, it's probably a blessing we have to be socially distant at this moment. I don't think it would be very "professional" to bend you over the desk, Dean.]

[Dean: Well, It's not very professional, us drinking in the office like this. But everyone's gone home for the day. No harm no foul.]

[Dean: Besides, I wouldn't mind doing that with you.] 

Dean looked up to see Castiel had turned his gaze to the door. He stood and for a terrifying second, Dean thought he was going to leave. Cas opened it but didn't move, he looked at Dean with a satisfied smile and then back down to his phone. 

[Cas: It seems we are not as alone as we thought.] 

Dean strained his ears and heard chattering and the whirr of a vacuum out in the office lobby. 

[Cas: I'm not sure how many late nights you've pulled here at Funtime Noodle Company, Dean, but by my estimates, we would have ten minutes before someone came to clean your office.] 

[Cas: Are you a betting man, Dean?] 

Dean looked up from his phone, licking his lips. He gave a perfunctory nod, Cas smiled. 

[Cas: If I can make you ejaculate before it's time to clean your office, you let me take you to dinner some night.]

[Dean: And if you can't?]

[Cas: You can take me out to dinner sometime.]

[Dean: And you'll send me the rest of those nudes? I know you're holding out on me.] 

Castiel laughed in a gasping rumble and nodded. 

[Dean: Deal then. Try your worst, Cas.]

[Cas: Dean, if we could have really gone out to that bar as you wanted, I'd have to break my rule about sex on the first date.] 

Dean laughed. Of course, Cas had a rule like that. 

[Cas: You're beautiful when you laugh, Dean.] 

[Cas: I wonder if you would laugh like that for me in my bed.] 

Dean hadn't expected that. He fought down a bashful smile. 

[Cas: You make me want to take my time with you, Dean.]

It was an odd thing to say given the goal of this little "exercise" was to have Dean cum as quickly as possible. But still-- 

[Dean: I think that's the first time I've ever heard that.]

Castiel hummed in a low, disappointed rumble. 

[Cas: They don't know what they had then.] 

[Cas: Dean Winchester, I would like to make love to you. I want each thrust to take you apart and I want each kiss to put you back together.] 

Dean closed his eyes shut for a second. When he opened them again Cas was smiling at him almost adoringly. Dean let himself pretend this moment was something more than casual. Heat pooled in his gut and his erection gave an exasperated twitch as if it had been begging to be noticed for some time. Dean palmed at it to quiet the arousal but instead his body pulsed with want. 

[Cas: Dean, if you need release, there's no time like the present. :)]

Dean laughed. Damn emoticons.

[Dean: Hey! I thought you were supposed to get me off. ]

[Cas: And I am, aren't I?] 

Dean rolled his eyes and released himself from his slacks with a hiss. As he gave himself a few experimental pumps before his phone buzzed again. 

[Cas: You know, I never understood office porn until right this very moment.] 

[Cas: I think it's the glasses. You remind me of one of those comic book heroes. Who was it?] 

[Cas: Oh, that's right. Superman.] 

[Cas: My God, what I wouldn't give to be deep throating you right now, Dean.] 

Dean let out a breathy groan. 

[Cas: Dean, I’m afraid you'll have to keep it down if you don't want the janitor to hear you.] 

Dean glared 

[Cas: Though I suppose if I could actually be fucking my face down on your cock right now I wouldn't really give a damn what noises you made.]

Dean felt on the precipice of one of the oddest orgasms he had ever had, fucking his fist with reckless urgency. He didn't know what he wanted to do more: laugh, cry, or cum.

Thankfully, the burden of choice was taken from him. Dean bit his lip in an effort not to shout as he shot a stream of ejaculate in a lofty arch over his hand and onto his "casual Friday" kakis. 

Before his vision cleared completely, he was hit in the head. With the tissue box, he kept near the chairs on the other side of the room. "Ah!" Castiel said thickly. "Sorry. My aim is a bit off." 

Castiel's intimate knowledge of the passage of time in the Funtime Noodle Company Corporate office had been surprisingly accurate. Just as Dean sipped his jacket over the slight discoloration in his pants. A surprised janitor poked his head in the door. "Uh. I didn't know you guys were still here. Really burning the midnight oil huh?" 

Cas didn't say anything, just sort of stared at the janitor as if he were speaking some alien language. It wasn't any wonder to Dean why. For the first time that night, he could see Cas looked absolutely wrecked. He was practically vibrating.  
  
Dean jumped in, "We were just on our way out. Right, Cas?" 

The heat in his eyes only flared as Dean started to advance on his spot across the room. He managed to nod. Dean, now completely relaxed from his release, winked and tossed Cas an easy smile. "Come on Cas, I'll walk you to your car. We have a follow-up appointment to schedule." 


End file.
